The Second Talking Scroll

Emily Dickinson called
she wants her bedroom back she
wants to talk to Susan says
morning does come tomorrow
the food doesn’t need to taste
good every time just spread some
peanut butter on a tor
tilla and move to the task
the scroll rolls from hands in prayer
or a gold mouth a loud song
this lamb with information
this random lamb you didn’t 
know could tell you what a sword
is what a night flower is
what a ribbon cutting is
according to a witness
if you can fly in a dream
it’s your anger trying to
fly some move to the Berkshires
others move upstate you can
go back to Mississippi 
you’ll be safe but you can’t be
a child again only men
want to return to childhood
turn into love more than five
senses I mean multitudes
but only three kinds of thought
the ones are flat and simple
sayable twos are anxious
threes are the ones to strive for
triangles trinities a
mercy butterfly flying
holy nonsensical lift
and where is Mississippi
for you the last real party
ended before you were born
talk made object is the point
talking you can dominate
by forcing it to be still
instead of disintegrate
the way it wants to slip past
try not to be hostile in
your love for spoken language
in the field of goats the two
brothers couldn’t have been more
different the younger built for
infinite running crashed in
to the chicken wire but the
older hung by your side and
asked you not to record his
singing just to listen now
do not let slip that gauntlet
feeling ask yourself did you
gauntlet did you legion did 
you upper limit siren 
if you need a pattern for
a dress use the manuscripts
carefully preserved for so 
long for us imagine that
you have a reason and isn’t
a reason suddenly there
diamond future play waltzes
are good for the body it
comes down from all the threes the
earth wants rhyme reflected back
at its own deep rhyme it wants
rows and columns you can’t help
but show what’s really real all
roses aren’t red let’s go Mets
grace when a happy thing falls

No Skips

I can’t let myself be confused about life
Human experience
Does not fall into parts
But language provides that illusion
I had seen love surface
That emotion wasn’t enough
That we have to be
That we are not
How poets got separated from all other kinds of thinkers
The book I read said poets cannot lie
Cannot tell the truth either
It’s another plane
Poets are wired to the mast of
Owl wing brushing the cheek of the Sphinx
Rilke lying on the ground, describing it
I thought we could live in cities
I believed that’s what they were for
Some girls only think about one thing
The limit
Some girls walk to the edge of the park
To sit close on the concrete ledge
Smoking their last cigarettes
Bearing messages for each other
Carrying them all week to the other
Fable of lost love
Myth of love attained forever
We heard the most beautiful young voice
Its source hidden by hanging branches
We used to be rich, the voice sang
Undress me, buy me drugs
The voice seemed to come out of the ocean
Augie ran again toward the pen of goats
With a clamshell box of corn on the cob
And I ran after, twisting my ankle
Twisting divots in the wet grass
Running too
Out of the dense poems of my youth
On a blue-lit stage
My sister sang about having friends in low places
I had never heard her sing before
I wished that I had known this singing
Some girls were tired of trusting that other voice
The one which came when they were alone
The voice said make the work better
The girls finally wanted to know why
One wanted to make the work good as a way to make herself good
The other said it won’t work
I made the work good
It did not change me at all
I’d like to print our voices
Payton’s saying my name
Julien’s exhalation
Beautiful night
Hello
We only know when it started when it ends
Engels observed free wills are always obstructing one another
I was sharing a pancake with another man
When I met the man I came to love
While I chewed I thought of Kintaro
The giant boy from the Japanese legend of the woods
What if that was it
The thing that only Kintaro could tell us
That what emerges is a poem no one willed
The world in halves
The recorder and the messenger
Orpheus’s head prophesying in the cave
Jamie letting down her golden hair in the park
The results of the apple cider vinegar rinse
Apollo embarrassed
Mortified really
He asks the head to stop, says softly
No one is listening
Orpheus we love you
But there’s no one here

Courtney Bush is a poet and filmmaker from Mississippi. She is the author of Every Book Is About The Same Thing (Newest York Arts Press, 2022), I Love Information (Milkweed Editions, 2023), A Movie (Lavender Ink, 2025) and The Lamb With The Talking Scroll (blush lit, forthcoming in 2025). She works in childcare.